Arizona weekly citizen., 1887-01-15
A CHINESE DOCTOR.
A PRESCRIPTION FROM A PlcTuR-
 ESoUE CELESTIAL PHYSICIAN.

Studying the BeatinEs of Both Pulses.
 Medicine to De Made Up and Taken l
 by the whoIesaIe-A Terrible Struggle. |
 Benefits
 Here was, face to face with the Chinee | doctor, whose advertisements were printed m | English, but who sadly complicated things by | talking the Chinee. l told him that l hadn't | learned Chinee yet. His mouth widened into | a grin, and he moti0ned me tO a wooden-bot- | toned chair.
 ~Chin Foo comee light wale, be said-
 Chin Foo was the interpreter. He came | back in ten minutes as happy ard dapper | looking Chinaman as ever trOttAd through l Mott street. Until he came amused myself | critically ogling this physician from tho | Flowery Kingdom He was decidedly pictu. esque His tall figure was enyelOped in | long, loose robe of yellow figured Chimes | silk, like the magician's garb m juvenile | fairy tales All but the extreme top of his | head was shaven smooth as a billiard tall | From the crown depended a queue of raven I hair, almost as long as the man was tall and | braided like a German maiden's locks. From | his upper lip dropped black mustache. The | ends were of extraordinary length. But sur | prising aS the mustache looked it wasn't half as | strange as his left hand He had let the nails | grow until they were fully an inch in length. | They were polished til they glistened The | nails of his other hand were parsd elose Co the | finger tips. He leis.Irely puifed cigarette l of very strong black tobacco ns he sat oppo- | site me against the background Of brilliant | curtains. -See here, Fco.r l said i've got malaria. | I've had it a long time-a good deal longer | than want it. I'm told your doctor makes a speciality of knocking out malaria in | single round
 That's right rejoined Foo, with grin; | -let the docter feel your pulse
 Foo jabb,red to his fantastic principal m | Chinese and I held out my hand to him He | long-nailed Celestial took one of my wrists m | either hand, pressed his fingers against the | pulse, and studied the floor with bowed head in silence So long that l looked quizZingly up I at Chin Foo and requested an explanation
 What's the matter with your doctor, Foo" l said. ~Does the case stagger hint And what in thunder does he want to feel both | my pulses for7
 -Oh, that's the regular professional method in China the dapper little interpreter re turned smiling at my mystification- Hes | orthodox as orthodoxy in China can make | him. Its peculiarity of physicians in the | Flowery Kingdom to study the beat of both | pulses
 Thepig-tailed Celestial medicine man looked | up from the floor and let go both my wrists as lively Chin Foo got c. the end of his re- marks. Then he reached for a pencil and one of the great sheets of yellow paper that were piled high on a rel table in front of him
 He is going to build you n prescription now Chin Foo said almiringly. -Natch | him. it'll interest you"
 The prescription was @ corker in size. TLe | medicine man began at the upper right hand | corner of the big yellow sheet with a jerSy | sort of scribble that built up curiousy Chinese characters in columns of three SD fast that l could scarcely follow him with my eye He built other columns under the first one until. after be had been at work something less than five minutes, the Chinese characters were piled up on top of each other in huge rows like the Navarro flats.
 That's all.- cried Foo, as, with a sigh of relief. I saw the medicine man from Canton dro;, his T-ncl and shove over the yellow prescription You can get this put up down iu MotS street, anl nowhere else. The doctors | fee Is e, plcasa-
 When you get that melicine you must fix it up into a tea. and take half cupful at a dose three times a day. Half a teacup Is rather small dose too, for you must re- member that the Chinese take their meii cine by the wholesale when they take any at all Their medicines are all allOpathic to a heroic extent so far us the consumption Of remedies Is concerned"
 An hour later l found the Chinese phar- macy of Hong Wah, Hee King & Co, the solitary Chimes drug store of Gotham. It was on the ground floor of a threc-story .l. "a g. | that looked very much like a little German grocery deckei with no placanls The clerk laid his mammoth pipe carefully aside, with the punk still sticking in the hole in the side. glanced at the prescription, and then starte,l to make it up. He drew handful of what resembled cinnamon sticks from one drawer, and laid them m biz metal scoop. This scoop was fastened on one end of a wooden rod that the clerk htld poised in the air by string. He hung a number of dangling weights on the other end .f this astonishing pharmaceutical scale, until, after a tedious delay he finally struck balance Then he dropped the whole thing on the counter, and grabbed something else from another drawer. This he weighed in the same tir,some fashion.
 There were fifteen or sixteen different and deperate looking drugs or herbs in that tig NfLAfN lIe0ll itttels ana Autu lllIl lltefu- l eyed Mongolian had weighed them all out separately he bundlel them all together again in red paper in a package bigger than my head, and an assistant who sat in a far of corner walked over to him, listened to him iabher something in Chinese and said in very fair English: Dollar and half
 gave him the money, tucked the heroic dose under my arm and rode home
 When got there dumped the whole pile | of medicine, sticks and powders and roots, into a kettle of hot water and boiled them for an hour until they became a tea. as Foo had directed It was most yillninous and unin- yiting decoction when I lifted the lil at the | expiration of the hour and j.oured out half a l cupful Long wrestling with the multituiin- Ous aches and pains and ills of life had made me familiar with a variel and terrible series of unsavory medical drinks but never in my life had introduced into my poor stomach anything 50 horrible to the taste as the tea that came of boiling these Chinese drugs and herbs By mighty effort forced the dose down my throat and kept it there by heroic and masterful struggle Of the will The | nightmare that made my broken slumbers weird and awful was but n trile compared with the internal commotion that rarkei my system that night when vas not wrestling with varlcGaied terrors of the nightmare. and in the morning my liver felt as 1T John L Sullivan had been using it all night as a sand bag. My spirits were dismal as a November , foS. and felt GS if Co offer me food were to heap insult upon my misery.
 But wholly unlocked forriss in my spirits followed the tremendous shaking up of my ! liver. The t1a produced a healthy stimula- . tion of the t0rp.i organ that made n, fe,I happy and rc-gnerltei for a vLolc week, And each time thereafter that ! made myself | 'e'sporaTily ssaSick by swallowing the awful I stuff the reaction was similarly grateful and T .Evisorating New York Sun. ,, The first money for Japan missions ,.rus c from the Snnlni.h Islanl-